National Planning Policy Statement

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, my honourable friend the Minister for Planning was drawing attention to the fact that this country is going to require an enormous amount of new building of houses if it is to meet anything like the demand that exists. I think that he would be the first to say that he does not know whether that will require 2% or 3% more land, but he was saying that more land will be needed to build the houses that we require.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, a couple of weeks ago the Telegraph newspaper claimed that it had established that more than 9,000 acres of land—an area the size of the city of Gloucester—is to be removed from the green belt by local authorities following the coalition’s planning reforms, and that at least 40% of councils with green belt land in their areas have already redrawn or planned to alter the boundaries of the protected areas in an attempt to meet demand for housing and development. Is that correct, and does it have the Government’s support?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, we have made it clear all along and all through the discussions on the National Planning Policy Framework that we support the retention of the green belt, which lies between and separates out major conurbations so that there is not one continuous string of developments. It will be up to local authorities to decide whether they need and have support to develop into any of their green belt, but by and large the Government’s policy is to retain the green belt, as it is a very important aspect.